So how did you do? The dreaded question about grades. Or not, depending on whom you ask. And we all know who does the asking. The kid that got more A’s than a drunk Canadian, that’s who. You know who you are. Coming up to us and asking us in hushed tones, “so how did you make out on Torts?”, knowing very well that we thought Learned Hand was a way to beat the house in Vegas.
Most of us 1Ls came back to class this semester hoping to leave last year long behind us. If we did well, we don’t want to tell anyone, lest the truth that the professor downed a bottle of single malt while grading our exam comes out. If we didn’t do well, we want to tell everyone, so the truth that we downed a bottle of single malt before writing our exams, comes out. Most of us come armed with this firm resolve that we are going to shape up or ship out (or flunk out…whichever comes first). Then there are some of us that think the best part of our first half of our 1L year was basking in the sunshine [sic] of a long winter break. Long enough for us not to even think about law or school. Long enough for us to forget that the only mocha-skinned thing we were curling up with on those cold December nights was the leather-bound tome on Torts. Now we’re back to the cold hard reality of the curve.
Everyone can’t be in the top 10%. By definition 90% of us aren’t. Stay behind the velvet rope boys and girls. If you’re going to get into Club LawRevue you’ve got to flash the bouncer (friends call him or her Chief-Ed.) some leg and elbow. Legwork and elbow grease that is. For those of us waiting out in the cold, we shouldn’t feel so bad, we’re among friends! And we as lawyer-wannabes have to come up with a reason why we didn’t do as well as we hoped. Funny how there’s no theory for why someone did well. I will admit I’ve done well on a couple of my classes and I can’t give you a good reason why. I can, however, give you a million and one reasons why my Criminal Law grade is criminal unto itself. Many a theory surfaces to suggest the reason behind dismal grades. There’s the “I thought I aced the exam but so did everyone else, so my grade is lower than chewing gum on the floor” theory. There’s the “I got what I deserved” theory. There’s the “Prof. X caught me in class on eBay buying a PlayStation 3 hence the added minus to my letter grade” theory. And last but not least there’s the “I knew the material but I totally can’t write a good exam” theory. I suppose theorize is what we do. We came here to learn how to analyze, didn’t we? I mean we all have to admit that most law students are so an anal-retentive even our proctologists start to worry.
When I came to law school the one thing my law-school-going friend repeatedly said was “paced over-preparedness.” The fact that this entailed resigning myself to study every waking hour was a realization that I didn’t care to enjoy. I listened to my friend, however, and last semester I clocked in more hours than an inter-state trucker on speed. I even told the law school administration about it; in my own little way of course. When volunteering to be a UHLC Ambassador, they asked if I was single. I answered, “What do you expect? With the hours I log at the library that characteristic is going to stay horrifyingly static for the next few years.” The closest I got to contact with the opposite sex at law school was tripping on some lady’s book/laptop/lunch bag (with the mandatory stroller attachment) and falling flat on my face in the library. She seemed to be used to having good looking men fall at her feet because she certainly didn’t flinch from her text book. All she did was talk right to her book in hushed tones and say:
“Well, you could sue me for negligence for leaving my bag in the way. But then you’d have to know a thing or two about duty, breach and causation. So… how did you make out on Torts?”
